In the southwestern part of India, on the ocean coast, between Goa and Calicut, there is a small and unremarkable town called Kittur. In this provincial town, life moves slowly, but, like everywhere else, it is filled with funny and scary, tragic and lyrical. A Muslim boy serving in a station tea shop falls into the net of an Islamic terrorist; a humble bookseller is arrested for selling The Satanic Verses; a wealthy half-breed high school student decides to blow up his college; A fake sexologist who sells drugs and gives advice on sex life is forced to look for a real cure for a young man who is sick with a mysterious illness. These and other stories are woven into the daily life of Kittur and its inhabitants, resulting in a portrait of provincial India in the seven years between the assassinations of Indira Gandhi and her son Rajiv. It was this time that marked the beginning of enormous changes that are now rapidly taking India into the unknown. If in his famous “White Tiger” Aravind Adiga painted a portrait of a man who is capable of anything to escape from poverty, then his new book is about little people, forever lost in the intricacies of desires and prohibitions.